Magdalena Otulakowska-Hypka is the laureate of the SONATINA 3 NCN grant

The observing platform on the top of Paranal mountain VLT Interferometer (VLTI) credit: ESO

The National Science Center awarded the SONATINA 3 grant to Dr. Otulakowska-Hypka to study symbiotic stars with the use of optical interferometry.

Optical interferometry combines the light observed by several telescopes that simultaneously observe the same astronomical object. This method allows to determine the size and even the exact shape of the observed objects, and in addition it does so on unprecedented angular resolutions of the order of milli arc seconds! This study will allow not only to determine the size of symbiotic stars, but also directly observe the extension of the surface of the red giant due to tidal forces and the mass transfer mode onto the accompanying white dwarf, which is extremely important for the theory of binary stellar systems.